…far be it from this ol’ Jurassic to stir up any sort of controversy… but a wee bit of ‘productive agitative discussion’ never goes amiss… following the example of tons and tons of fellow scribblers before me, I ventured into the self-publishing universe jungle around seven years ago… buoyed by the unbelievably euphoric pink cloud that attended the typing of ‘The End’ on my very first swaddled crime thriller masterpiece, visions spun in my head of multi-gazillion-dollar liereray contracts, TV series, and yes, the bright neon strips in Hollywood…

…all I had to do as acquire an Agent…. simple enuff gig… yeez buy the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook… then thumb through to the section with the names and addresses of these Agent Gods and Goddesses… absorb the ‘submission requirements’, and pop ‘em in the mail or, with some advanced technology-users, bang ‘em out online, with said attachments… then yeez wait… and wait… and wait… and wait… and, oh just a minute, is that Life drifting by?… meanwhile, along comes the ‘building of the platform’ thingy on the SOSYAL NETWURKS… the being ‘present’ on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Every-Other-Gawd-Forsaken-Medya-Channel… and if like me, yeez get really lucky, along comes a Shining-Knight-Of-A-Smaller-Publishing-House that transforms yeez from a newbie self-pubbed quill-scraper to a ‘house-represented’Author… so where’s the ephemeral, much-besought Agent in all of it?… nowhere, that’s where… morphed into part of the inviolable paper mountain of pre-typed ‘Sorry, Luv yer WURK, but not for us at present’ notices…

…begs the question… did I ever need an Agent in the first place?… don’t get me wrong, I know of people who have one, and a fine job they do… equally I’ve heard apocalyptical tales of Agents-Gone-Wonky-Not-WURTH-The Trouble-Of-Calling… here’s another ponderable… I like playing with numbers… a guesstimate based on the Great God Amazon lists of titles would suggest WURLD-wide p’raps there are, what, 20,000,000 writers/wannabe writers on the planet?… and maybe 50,000 Agents?… a ratio of 400 to 1… doesn’t take Einstein to figure that doesn’t function very well… as the quality of masterpieces improves in the self-publishing arena, and Authors become more savvy at ‘selling’themselves and their WURK, Agents may go the way of, dare I say it, the dinosaurs… I’ll leave yeez with that thought… Authors, yeez seek ’em here, yeez seek ’em there… Literary Agents… but is it WURTHWHILE?… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

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I agree that it may well not be worthwhile. I thought carefully about this when thinking of putting my books out there; I realised that I would probably be pushing up the daisies and be several hundred pounds worse off from buying A-4 envelopes, paper for printing, ink for the printer and the postage (because, strangely, many agents still want your samples on paper). Then how would my loving family pay for my funeral if I’ve squandered all my money away on scripts that are only going to be sent back to me – if I’m lucky to hear at all. No, an agent and all the stuff that goes with ‘conventional’ publishing wasn’t for me if I was ever going to see any of my babies in book form. Okay, I realise I’ll never make much doing what I do, but at least I get the thrill out of seeing my books lined up on my shelf.

Been there, done that, still thinking about it. Maybe my kids will reap the bennies of a “deceased” author’s works, just as most artist don’t make money until years after death. I just enjoy the process, don’t care if anyone reads it or not. Eh, who am I kidding. I’ve been published locally, and that is fun. I won’t make any money on it, but I’m happy with what I have, and if I had more I tend to give it away, so all is good here.

I’m also one of those writers who began late and I don’t have 20 to 30 years to wait around to be discovered and/or accepted. It’s going to be Indy or nothing when I’m ready to publish. Each has to decide for themselves. 🙂

I’ll give anything a whirl, even querying agents. So far the result has been…hard to tell. I’m still waiting to get some reaction from the buggers, even a polite rejection would be better than radio silence. I have had one or two polite rejections to be strictly accurate, but about 90% don’t even lift their eyes off the desk as far as I can tell. Trouble is, you can never have a shot at the big pubs without an agent. The fact that most agents don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being noticed by a big publisher is another story.

With the internet here, home buyers need real estate agents less and less – no matter what the realtor groups say, the customers grew weary of their antics and have taken up the reins themselves. Agents may arrive at the same conclusion as writers do become more adept ( and self confident).
Not all together sad.
Each must travel the path that works for them.